Guerilla Marketing

“David has written the survival guide for the new millennium professional. An intense ...... ness to sell you insurance, a new car, computer, or clothes? Un- likely.
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Copyright © 2005 by Jay Conrad Levinson, David E. Perry. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 7508400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 7486008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 7622974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com. ISBN-13 978-0-471-71484-2 (pbk.) ISBN-10 0-471-71484-4 (pbk.) Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my five miracles: my wife, business partner, and the love of my life—Anita Martel; and our four amazing children—Christa, Corey, Mandy, and Shannon. To my parents, Myrtle Gallagher and Fred Perry, who have given more of themselves than any parents should. You are incredible. Thanks. I promise no new books for at least two years. D. E. P.

You know who you are, David Perry, and you know how much heavy lifting and fiery hoop diving you’ve had to do. I also owe acknowledgments to Frank and Ginger Adkins, who are currently walking the walk; to Jeremy Huffman, who has reached his destination already; to Christy Huffman, who has the journey ahead of her and will benefit from the words in these pages; and to Joshua Huffman, who searched for the perfect job and found it while looking in the mirror. J. C. L.

Praise for

Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters

“Looking for a great job? So is everyone else and it’s a war out there! If you want to actually land that outstanding job, Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters is THE indispensable tool for winning big time in today’s new world of job hunting. Buy this book, follow the program and expect great things.” Howard Adamsky, Managing Director HR Innovators, Inc., Author of Hiring and Retaining Top IT Professionals “David has written the survival guide for the new millennium professional. An intense course in self-marketing, he covers self-promotion, effective networking, e-prospecting, personal branding, the interview, negotiation, and the close. This is the fundamental sales training we all need. After reading this, you may job hunt just for the thrill of it!” Steve Panyko, CEO CML Emergency Systems “A must have “self improvement tool” for any type job seeker! Thought provoking, it will enable you to devise innovative “out of the box” techniques to land a new job, even in today’s fiercely competitive job market. In my opinion Perry, you have created two books in one. This should also be required reading by any sales person who is looking for creative approaches to the sales cycle. Excellent book. . . . I highly recommend it.” Steven R. O’Hanlon, President and Chief Operating Officer NumeriX LLC “Outstanding! Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters goes far beyond being a practical guide for the knowledge worker’s job hunt. It maps out a game plan for winning one of the most important games we will ever play—our career.” Gordon Neil Briscoe, Vice President Consulting Services CGI “Full marks to author David Perry, the Peter Drucker of the executive search industry. Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters provides powerful and unique insights into how to take complete control over your next career move. After reading this book you will do just that, take control, using a road map that gives you the confidence to succeed.” John Reid, President Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) Alliance

“Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters is the first practical battle-plan for a new, empowered workforce- one that is ready to go to war over talent- their own. Jay Levinson and David Perry take you to the front lines and tell you how to survive and prosper. Not for faint-hearted whiners looking for an easy road These guys show you how to build underground tunnels, find backdoors and infiltrate the opposition.” Gerry Crispin, SPHR, Chief Navigator CareerXroads “This book is a very good read and a very pragmatic ‘how to’. A practical, powerful workbook that will empower any job seeker.” Brian Clark, CEO Jade UK “Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters will help you humble even the “super powers” of jobs—employers.” Peter Weddle Author of Generalship: HR Leadership in a Time of War “David Perry’s new book (much like the man himself) is smart, aggressive and techno-savvy. You could do no better than to use “Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters” as your battle plan for career dominance.” Jim Moens SearchWorks “Job hunting is not about newspapers, friends, or writing grammatically correct resumes. It’s about career planning, strategy, self promotion, and execution. This book provides the tools you need to break through the corporate barriers and uncover the best opportunities for you.” Kevin Watson, Engineering Director NetManage “In the old days, job security came from your employer. ‘Today it comes from your resume, interview preparation, deep research and the ability to leverage your career to the next level.’ If you’re not convinced of that, read this book. If you are, and really want to optimize your search effort, read this book. If you love your present job and think you’ll never have to look for another one . . . PLEASE read this book!” Rick Dalmazzi, Principal Attivo Capital and past CEO, Certicom Corp. “Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters will prove to be the most valuable and innovative job search publication of it’s time. This instruction manual is easy reading yet literally packed with lively real world exercises, success stories, and powerful strategies the serious job seeker will want to put to use today!” Mark J. Haluska, Executive Director Real Time NetWork, Pittsburgh, PA

Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1:

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Why You Need to Become a Guerrilla Job-Hunter The New Global America PART I

1

YOUR GUERRILLA MIND

Chapter 2: Your Guerrilla Mind-Set Head Games: Shape Up Your Attitude

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Chapter 3: Your Guerrilla Job-Hunting Strategy Think Like a General—Work Like a Sergeant

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Chapter 4: Logistics—Building Your War Room Set Yourself Up to Win

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Chapter 5:

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Your Research Plan Research: The Guerrilla’s Competitive Edge

PART II

WEAPONS THAT MAKE YOU A GUERRILLA

Chapter 6:

Secret Weapons Overhauling Your Conventional Weapons

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Chapter 7:

Twenty-First Century Digital Weapons If You Build It, They Will Come for You . . .

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Chapter 8:

Your Public Relations Strategy PR Is Not Just for Products

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CONTENTS PART III

Chapter 9:

TACTICS THAT MAKE YOU A GUERRILLA

Guerrilla Networking A Radical Approach

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Chapter 10: Fearless Cold Calling A Fresh Alternative

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Chapter 11: 13 Creative Ways to Find a Job Breakthrough Strategies

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Chapter 12: Accelerated Job Search Techniques for Veterans An Insider’s View

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PART IV

YOUR GUERRILLA JOB-HUNTING CAMPAIGN

Chapter 13: Sample Campaigns The Force Multiplier Effect in Action

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Chapter 14: Hand-to-Hand Combat Winning the Face-to-Face Interview

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Chapter 15: Negotiating the Deal How to Bargain with Confidence

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Chapter 16: Ready Aye Ready

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Appendix 1: Call Logs

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Appendix 2: eXtreme Makeover Resume Samples

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Appendix 3: Compensation Checklist

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Appendix 4: Value-Based™ Resume

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Appendix 5: Example of the Only Cover Letter You Will Ever Need

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About the Authors

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Index

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Foreword

During my last 17 years as CEO of ExecuNet, hardly a week has gone by that a new book designed to help job-hunters hasn’t crossed my desk. While they may all be written with the best intentions, many of these books lack the practical ideas, strategies, and techniques proven to help job-seekers uncover the best possible opportunities. It is with this bias that I started reading Guerrilla Marketing For JobHunters, and in very little time, Jay Levinson and David Perry had put my frustrations with “how to” books to rest. Having spent the better half of my career helping executives find better job opportunities, it’s been my experience that most people intellectually understand that making a change is essentially a sales and marketing process. But it doesn’t seem to sink in on an emotional level until after they’ve faced the anonymous rejection or lack of response that often follows their flurry of online ad hunting and clicking. It is only then that they often come to the realization that answering ads or doing anything else that doesn’t require face-to-face interaction isn’t going to be the best way to find a great job. The timing for a book containing the insight found in the chapters ahead could not be better. Since forming ExecuNet in 1988, the relationship between employees and employers has changed dramatically. Having experienced my own unexpected job termination years ago, I can tell you firsthand that the days of lifetime employment are long gone. Since their first layoffs occurred in the early 1990s, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) no longer touts an advertising campaign featuring the tagline, “Jobs may come and go. But people shouldn’t.” Today, if you’re at a company for more than three and a half years, your tenure is longer than most. And if you fall asleep at night thinking your job can’t be eliminated, you’re only kidding yourself. In the years ahead, mobility—not stability—will ultimately define a

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FOREWORD

long and successful career. Yet, despite this transformation, many professionals still spend more time planning their next vacation than their next career move, which is why this book is such an invaluable asset. One of the reasons I’m so impressed by what Jay and David have done with Guerrilla Marketing for Job-Hunters is that their focus never veers off course. Every page is written with a single purpose: to help you land your dream job. Not only do they cover the waterfront in terms of the critical issues one needs to address during a job search, they are presented with clear, logical steps that you can apply immediately! This is not a book written by individuals who have been observing the action on the frontlines from the safety of the sidelines. In addition to the extensive experience the authors have in both marketing and recruiting, the book incorporates Guerrilla Wisdom and War Stories contributed by other industry leaders and successful jobseekers. Each of these excerpts provides a unique and valuable perspective on what does and doesn’t work for job-hunters. The operative word, of course, is work. There is powerful knowledge contained within the book’s front and back covers, but it will not help if you expect to read it then sit back and wait for the phone to ring. Fortunately, most of us are not afraid of hard work if we feel there is a chance for success. My guess is that when you are finished reading this book, you’ll not only feel like you can successfully use its tools and tactics, you’ll actually be looking forward to the many challenges presented by a job search. My excitement about what this book has accomplished is tied to some research I came across many years ago. Designed to measure the impact of a number of different stressful experiences in life, this study found that the loss of a job was the third most traumatic event we could experience. The only two events that were more significant were death of a spouse, which ranked first, and divorce. With this knowledge in hand, it’s easier to understand how scary the process of making a job change can be and appreciate a resource like this book, which has the potential to take the fear out of a job search and replace it with excitement. The practical ideas, strategies, and techniques for job-hunting contained in the pages ahead: ➤ Are delivered in words of one syllable by authors who operate in the real world

Foreword



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➤ Have already helped job-seekers stand out from the herd in the real world ➤ Most importantly, have all been proven to help job-hunters land their dream job in the real world Whether or not you put these tools and tactics to use in your world is in your hands now. DAVE OPTON Founder and CEO www.ExecuNet.Com Norwalk, CT

Acknowledgments

Writing a book truly makes you appreciate your friends and colleagues. It takes many people to bring a book to life, and it is my honor to recognize them now. The recruiting industry, by its very nature, attracts mavericks, evangelists, and pioneers. It has been my good fortune to work alongside and share ideas with some of the finest in the business, including many who contributed to this book. My deep thanks go out to Lauryn Franzoni, Bill Humbert, Beth H. Kniss, Ross Macpherson, Shari Miller, Jim Moens, Dave Opton, Sally Poole, Paul Rector, Jill Tanenbaum, and Deanna J. Williams. In writing this book, I reached out to many people—clients, marketers, and fellow writers. This text has benefited from the guerrilla intelligence of Brenda Batten, David Braun, Janice Calnan, David Carpe, Matt Ferguson, Laura Dierker, Shirley-Ann George, Daniel Houle, Joseph Lanzon, Ross Macpherson, Patrick McConnell, Joseph Nour, Allan Pace, Lynda Partner, Chuck Pearson, Michael Port, Jim Reil, Nathan Rudyk, Shally Steckerl, Penelope Trunk, Kevin Watson, Peter Weddle, Debbie Weil, Tom Weishaar, and Allan Zander—my thanks to each of you. When I started my Executive Search firm with my wife and business partner Anita Martel, my marketing budget for the entire year was $20. As luck would have it, I stumbled across an interesting book called Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1989) that promised to reveal hundreds of ways to stretch my marketing budget and get results. Indeed, I owe my early successes in recruiting to Jay’s ideas. Little did I know that 17 years later Jay would write the Foreword for my first book, Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional (Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2004), and ask me to coauthor this book. To guerrilla marketers, Jay Conrad Levinson is a five-star general. He is also a true gentleman. I am honored to write alongside him.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Mark J. Haluska, my friend, and colleague in recruiting, contributed his blood, sweat, and cheers to this book. Following a remarkable career in the military and in public service, Mark has become a first-class headhunter. His insight into the minds of hiring managers, his knowledge of all things recruiting, and his off-the-wall sense of humor have been invaluable. It was a real pleasure to work with my agents Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada. Thank you both for your time, patience, and guidance, as well as for recruiting me to the project. All the people at John Wiley & Sons were a pleasure to work with, including Pam and Laurie. I want to single out Mike Hamilton for suggesting the idea for Guerrilla Marketing for Job-Hunters. Many thanks to Megan Quinn at Google for steering me through the permissions process so we could use all the Google screen shots which make the book easier to follow. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. And finally, to the tens of thousands of job-hunters and hundreds of clients I have worked with over the years—thank you. Without you, my life would not have been nearly as interesting. DAVID PERRY [email protected]

Sage Schofield knows what she’s done; Seth Pickett is our Official Man on the Streets; and Natalie Smith continues to lead by spirit. Acknowledgments are also due to Steven, Michelle, Heide, Elexa, Hayley, Zachary, Austin, Blake, Ava, Alyssa, Leighton, and John Thomas for being so darned cute. And of course, my life and my search are more fruitful because of my new bride, Jeannie Levinson, and my constant daughter, Amy Levinson. JAY CONRAD LEVINSON

Introduction

There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job. —GEORGE CRANE

In the early 1800s, our forefathers witnessed the beginning of a colossal economic transformation with the onset of the industrial revolution. Within a single generation, it became necessary to start clearing out old city neighborhoods and rich farmlands to make way for steel mills, railway yards, warehouses, and office buildings. To fuel this economic behemoth, people left the far reaches of rural America to take jobs that most of them would hold for the rest of their working lives. Today in places like China and India, old city neighborhoods, entire towns, and rich farmlands are still being cleared to make way for trade and industry. The tidal wave of economic change—pressure to increase shareholder value quarterly instead of yearly, outsourcing, and rightsizing—all have greatly affected the domestic job market that we once knew. Competition to get noticed and chosen for the best professional opportunities is stiff. No matter how talented you may be, many others also are vying for that top spot. Guerrilla Marketing for Job-Hunters explains how to use the Force Multiplier Effect, a proven military technique for overwhelming an opponent and securing victory. We also explain in detail how to take full advantage of job-hunting techniques that until now have been known only by a handful of others. If you read and follow our suggestions, you will benefit from a structured, guided, and more competitive job-hunting approach appropriate for today’s job market. You will learn: ➤ Why the job-hunting climate is the way it is, ➤ Where the economy is going over the next 5 to 10 years, and ➤ Which industries have a future in this new business climate.

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INTRODUCTION

Guerrilla Marketing for Job-Hunters is about managing your career as a professional services provider: how to brand yourself, increase your value, and build a rewarding career. The book covers all the elements of a successful guerrilla job-hunting campaign: ➤ How to use Google to uncover opportunities in the hidden job market ➤ How to craft a resume that highlights your value ➤ Tips for leveraging Internet-based social networks ➤ Advanced ways to supersize your personal network ➤ How to find lists of prospects ➤ The keys to self-promotion You will also learn how to deal with all the problems related to jobhunting: ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Conquering job boards Ferreting out jobs ahead of everyone else Delivering your resume to the right person Scaling the walls of fortress America to secure interviews Making a lasting impression Avoiding the boss-from-hell Acing an interview Negotiating your best deal

Guerrilla, this is your Super Bowl, and you know there can only be one winner. You need a multipronged plan of attack that outflanks the competition. This book includes little-known recruiter tricks that will separate you from the pack quickly and put you on top. A WA R S T O RY Shari Miller After being laid off, George Brown knew exactly which company he wanted to work for next, but every time he called, Human Resources told him the company wasn’t hiring. So George sprang into action, and another guerrilla job-hunter was born. George printed business cards that were round, slightly larger than normal, and very colorful. On the front was a picture of a pizza with a circle-shaped message: “Win a Free Pizza.” The flip side of the card gave his name, e-mail address, and telephone number along with the promise of a pizza for the first person to get him an interview with a manager in the company.

Introduction



Dressed for an interview, George stationed himself at the entrance of the company and handed out cards to everybody who would take one. He kept this up for a couple of days and became a topic of conversation at the company. One manager figured that anyone who would go to so much effort deserved an interview. One extra-large pizza later, George guerrilla-marketed his way to the job of his dreams at very little expense, and the company is more profitable because of it. Compliments of Shari Miller, Principle of The Elmhurst Group, www.elmhurstgroup.com.

GUERRILLA WISDOM For Women Only Anita Martel

Whenever someone gets a book like this the temptation is almost always to skim the index for contents first and then to jump to the sections that seem to quell his or her anxieties. Although you could very well do that this is not the best approach that will get you the maximum result you are looking for. The best way to use this book is to think of it as a recipe book. First make sure it’s the “Dish” you are looking for. Then you will need to look over the ingredients list (table of contents) so you can get an accurate idea of what’s involved. Here’s where the temptation to skip some of the items on that list comes in. If you think of this book as a recipe book, ask yourself if it would be wise to leave out the eggs or the baking powder and still expect your cake to end up light and fluffy! Take the time to read every chapter. Even if you don’t pay close attention to each sentence, your mind has seen it and will keep it on file. Then if you are already doing some of what is suggested, you may want to adapt or modify your game plan and focus on the chapters that are most useful to you. Don’t hold back—use the suggestions in this book and become the best guerrilla marketer you can be! Anita Martel, Perry-Martel International Inc. David’s wife and business partner.

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Chapter

Why You Need to Become a Guerrilla Job-Hunter The New Global America It’s not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent, that survive; it’s the one most responsive to change. —CHARLES DARWIN

Under siege from layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, rightsizing, downsizing, and bankruptcies, America is in the midst of a profound business transformation. It is the result of developments in information and communications technologies, changing human values, and the rise of the global knowledge-based economy. The sheer complexity and technical sophistication of business has transformed the job market. Business is becoming knowledge based and technology intensive. Knowledge workers are the backbone of the United States. They are employed in all sectors of the economy, most prominently in the information technology and communications sectors, but also to a growing extent in health care, manufacturing, education, finance, natural resources, defense, and government—in any field that requires innovation to sustain competitiveness. Competitive advantage is rooted in the new ideas of these skilled workers. Twenty to forty million Americans change jobs every year. Already reeling from the struggling economy, competition for the remaining jobs is tougher than ever, the rules for getting them have changed, and global competition ensures that the rules will change

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GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR JOB-HUNTERS

again tomorrow. Many people needlessly drift in and out of dead-end jobs because they don’t know which industries have a future or how to present their value in the right terms to the people who can hire them. To succeed in this new marketplace, you must have a plan. Your plan must be clear and detailed in every way. It must also be: ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Clever, Results driven, Marketing oriented, Inexpensive to execute, Realistic, and Achievable.

No government agency, educational institution, or think tank has a genuine crystal ball to make a call on the future; there are simply too many unknown factors when it comes to industry and job creation. One thing is certain, whether you are employed but unhappy, or unemployed and in need of a new opportunity, as a job-hunter, you are at a strategic fork in the road.

■ EVENTS THAT CHANGED JOB-HUNTING FOREVER ➤ The Advent of the Internet Just a few years ago if you were looking for a job, you would wait for the Sunday paper and check the classified ads or ask your friends and neighbors. Now, thanks to instant communications and 24/7 access, you can job-hunt in your pajamas. ➤ Enron, the Dot-Com Bubble, and Ethics The dot-com bubble burst when investors suddenly realized companies needed to make a profit to stay in business. In a virtual onetwo punch, the scandals at Enron accelerated the changing relationship between employers and employees. Profit became the new god. A post-Enron survey found that 58 percent of workers thought that top executives were only looking out for themselves (Heldrich Center and the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at University of Connecticut). Business violated the old social contract:

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“Be loyal and we will take care of you.” Employees feel they are responsible for their own welfare—companies don’t care. Consequently, loyalty is low and many people now think like “free agents.” ➤ 9/11 The horrific events of September 11, 2001, have changed the face of America. The United States has always been seen as a destination for immigrants eager to build a better life, safe from the ravages of the wars that have plagued Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Because of the events of 9/11, immigration has been restricted. Immigrants bring with them a diverse set of talents, abilities, and skills that America will rely on more in the next decade as skill requirements of new jobs rise and our population ages. For more than 200 years, immigration has fueled growth in the United States and shored up skilled worker shortages. The events of 9/11 altered the mix of people the United States allows into the country and, therefore, unwittingly slowed the natural growth of the economy. ➤ Retiring Baby Boomers Just as the United States is emerging from its recession, a major event is poised to erase all the productivity gains of the past few years and cripple growth across every sector of the economy—baby boomers are retiring in unprecedented numbers. With 76 million baby boomers heading toward retirement, the United States is facing a mammoth talent crunch. In the very near future, there will be 15 percent fewer Americans in the 35- to 45-year-old range than there are now. At the same time, the U.S. economy is likely to grow at a rate of 3 percent to 4 percent per year. Who will do the work? Will more jobs be offshored? ➤ Tiananmen Square The Western world’s reaction to Tiananmen Square helped put China on the road to democracy, opening the single largest market in the world. Most of China’s one billion people live in conditions not unlike those found in the early 1900s in the United States. Shortly, there will be a growing demand for everything modern. China will strain the world’s resources in agriculture, manufacturing, energy, transportation, natural resources, education, and medicine, affecting manufacturing and the cost of raw materials on a global scale.

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■ THE NEW GLOBAL THEATER The United States is again at a major crossroads in history. The current “jobless” recovery is a consequence of the economy’s rapid evolution from a natural resources- and manufacturingbased economy to a knowledge-based one. We are witnessing the first economic recovery in what has become a full information economy. For most of the twentieth century, a recession was a cyclical decline in demand—the result of excess inventory that needed to be sold off. People were temporarily laid off—inventory backlogs were reduced and demand would snap back quickly. As product demand increased, workers returned to their preexisting positions in factories, or they found an equivalent job with another company. Over the past few years, dramatic advances in information technology have allowed companies to establish tightly integrated demand and supply chains, and outsource manufacturing and low-end service jobs to save money. Rightly or wrongly, many of the jobs that have entirely disappeared from North America have reappeared in India, China, and Latin America. Rather than furloughs, many people were let go, forcing them to switch industries, sectors, locations, or skills to find a new job. If job growth now depends on the creation of new positions, you should expect a long lag before employment rebounds. Employers incur risks in creating new jobs and require additional time to establish and fill positions. Investment in new capital equipment is no longer a pendulum swinging from recession to recovery and back again. Instead of resources or land, today capital means human capital. It doesn’t take a shoe factory to go into the shoe business these days. Nor do you need raw materials or fleets of trucks. Nike became a shoe industry leader by concentrating on the value-producing capacity of its employees for design, marketing, and distribution know-how. The real capital is intangible: a person’s knowledge level, combined with an aptitude for application. Numerous labor market studies indicate that there is already a looming knowledge worker skills shortage—a shortage that impacts competitiveness and economic and social development. There is every reason to believe that these shortages will not diminish soon because skilled baby boomers are retiring in unprecedented numbers, while the newly created knowledge economy jobs require more education and higher skill levels.

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■ WHY YOU NEED TO BE A GUERRILLA With a radically smaller pool of skilled workers and the increased demand for profits, the original War for Talent of the late 1990s has morphed from a quantitative to a qualitative one, best described as the War for the Best Talent by author Peter Weddle in Generalship: HR Leadership in a Time of War (Stamford, CT: Weddle’s, 2004). The old “bums on seats” mentality of many employers is quickly being replaced by “brains on seats.” Faced with stiffer competition and tougher hiring requirements, companies of every sort are becoming single-minded about productivity and bottom-line performance. Consequently, competition for jobs is increasing as management seeks and hires only those persons who appear to have the most potential for helping to boost the company’s profits. For many companies, employees are now viewed as a variable cost—hence the term human capital—to remain “on the books” only as long as they continue to produce. Looking for an oldfashioned job like the one “Dad used to have” is a waste of your time— Jobs are temporary in the new economy—henceforth you always need to be looking for the next opportunity. The people who market their talent the best will win!

■ OFFSHORING AND AMERICA’S FUTURE AS A GLOBAL INNOVATOR During the 2004 presidential election, both President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry had a lot to say about the future of offshoring and what the practice of shipping jobs overseas means for the U.S. economy. Even after the election, Republicans and Democrats disagree on this subject. The macroeconomics will be argued for some time to come. As a guerrilla job-hunter, you need interest yourself only in the microeconomic impact of offshoring and how it affects your career—in short, which jobs are likely to disappear over time and what industries are likely to benefit. Your job is at risk to offshoring if: 1. It can be broken down into many smaller tasks that can be redistributed to lower skilled, lower paid workers; 2. Your company’s profits are under constant assault by lowcost competitors; or

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GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR JOB-HUNTERS

GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE You can read the full article, “Who Wins in Offshoring?” at http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com. If you want to know more about the topic, read these two reports—one pro and one con— regardless of the industry you are in: ➤ From the Information Technology Association of America—“Executive Summary: The Comprehensive Impact of Offshore IT Software and Services Outsourcing on the U.S. Economy and the IT Industry” (www.itaa.org/itserv/docs /execsumm.pdf). ➤ Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers—“Offshoring Study Misses Important Issues” (http://releases .usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=28211). 3. Someone else with a high-school education can do your job with less than a week’s training. Here’s what you can bank on: 1. The offshoring trend won’t stop anytime soon. 2. Companies will continue to maximize profits and reduce costs. 3. The government will not solve your career problems—at best it will provide limited retraining assistance.

■ SKILLS THAT WON’T BE OFFSHORED ➤ Leadership Skills Self-confessed team players are often regarded as “followers” or “hangers-on” by senior management. I know you have been told: “We are supposed to be team players!” The Human Resources department may have told you that, but there’s a difference between leaders who can follow others, and those people who always need to follow others. My advice to you—forget about buying another power tie, instead invest in a course on leadership and look for opportunities to test your new-found skills within the company or outside as a volunteer. The ability to lead will be the number one requirement for guerrilla job-hunters.

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➤ Project Management Skills Develop the fine art of managing people and projects. Learn how to deal with customers, work with vendors, and interact with management in ways that satisfy the needs and objectives of the organization. This elusive talent is of great value and will support the notion that you are becoming a person who is of great value to your organization. My advice—look into a formal accreditation through the Project Management Institute (http://www.pmi.org /info/default.asp). ➤ People Skills If you become the person who can pull teams together, support communication, and make things happen, that will help make your position and perceived value within the organization more visible and support the argument that leaving your job intact is a good business decision. My advice—learn to be likable and how to work a room without looking like a self-obsessed shark. ➤ Communication Skills Writing and public speaking are critical skills whether you are representing your company or merely trying to sway your boss. A publicspeaking course will have you on the podium and in the limelight faster than any other single action you can take. Your value and confidence will increase dramatically. My advice—join a Toastmaster’s networking group near you today. ➤ Sales Skills There are many jokes about salespeople: What do they really do besides lunch and golf? Bring in the business, that’s what, and today that’s everyone’s responsibility. New business is the lifeblood of every business. When you become known as a rainmaker, the chances of your job being offshored diminish dramatically. My advice—become great at it. Start with a few books like Selling to VITO by Anthony Parinello (Cincinnati, OH: Adams Media Corporation, 1999) and Advanced Selling Strategies by Brian Tracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Devour those books and then take a formal course.

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■ JOBS THAT WON’T BE OFFSHORED There are some jobs that, at the moment, just can’t be offshored. Can you imagine offshoring your personal financial planning to a stranger in some foreign country? Are you going to fly to a foreign country just to see a doctor or check yourself into a hospital? Is a salesperson from Asia likely to travel to your home or place of business to sell you insurance, a new car, computer, or clothes? Unlikely. There is a clear pattern here. Many jobs because of their “personal” nature or “security” cannot be offshored, which means they will be protected from rampant offshoring. Baby boomers are the wealthiest generation ever and scores of new jobs will be created because of our obsession with youth, advances in medicine, bioengineering, and security. The security issues that were exposed by the 9/11 terror activities have spawned whole new industries as the United States looks to secure its borders from terrorists. The banking, travel, agriculture, energy, medical, and other industries vital to our social and economic well-being are vulnerable and not likely to be leaving our shores anytime soon. Understanding which jobs are not likely to be offshored and why can help you make informed career choices. Industries that won’t be offshored include: ➤ Energy: The war in Iraq and general instability in the Middle East are prompting a greater push to find new sources of energy. There will be more demand for the people who search for, mine, and develop new sources as well as for people to manage marketing and sales, accounting, human resources, and technology, and the list goes on. ➤ Preventive Health Care: This is a hot area for growth right now and it will continue for years to come as the baby boomers age. The demand for workers applies to all levels. ➤ Security: In addition to antiterrorism needs, there is growing concern among companies to protect their greatest asset: information. Additionally, employers are increasingly concerned about the backgrounds of people they are hiring, which will give rise to investigative services. ➤ Military: Need I say more? The demand will increase as will the educational requirements for people looking for the jobs in communications and intelligence.

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➤ Government: At every level—municipal, state, and federal— demands will only get bigger. Leadership will be in high demand as will bilingualism in many jurisdictions. ➤ Insurance: The more uncertainty there is in a society, the greater the demand for insurance. Providers will continue to need sales agents, claim adjusters, researchers, customer service people, accountants, and lawyers. ➤ Consumer Financial Services: As more people own homes, cars, and so on, demand is increasing for loan agents and title company workers. With losses growing in company-sponsored 401(k) plans, more people are taking greater control over their retirement savings and seeking investment counselors and brokers to manage their money. ➤ Agriculture: Farms employ hundreds of thousands of people in almost every capacity imaginable, from marketing and public relations professionals to genetic scientists. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates there will be nearly 58,000 job openings each year through 2005 (http://www.usda.gov/wps/ portal/usdahome). ➤ Biotechnology/Pharmaceutical: Greater need for prescription drugs will increase demand in these sectors. As more and more money is dedicated to gene and cloning research, opportunities will grow in the biotech industry. The prospects in your area of the country will vary, but this list provides a snapshot of what will be happening around the country.

■ YOUR SIX CAREERS William Bridges, author of JobShift—How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs (Philadelphia, PA: Perseus Books Group, 1995), contends that the United States is undergoing a process of “dejobbing”—an end to the traditional job as we know it. “The old pattern of hiring and keeping large numbers of full-time, long-term workers on the grounds that they may be needed in the future is harder and harder for companies to do,” Bridges says. Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. Labor Department looked at the workforce and at trends in the job market and announced that people will have as many as five or six careers in their lifetime (Anything Goes! What I’ve learned from Pundits, Politicians and Presidents, New York: Warner Books, 2000). Who would have thought they’d get that one right! I certainly wouldn’t have, yet I am a prime example.

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I started my career in retail, moved into banking, and then into executive search and placement, all before I was 25. Twenty years later, I am still in the executive search and placement industry, but even that career has evolved from a specialty in retail to the construction and property management industries and now into the high-tech marketplace. You could even argue that writing a book is yet another career. Not long ago, society expected an individual to spend a lifetime at one company. Those expectations have changed. Now you are expected to change jobs every few years. To thrive in this environment, you need to adopt a guerrilla marketing mind-set. You need to think of yourself as a tightly knit package of capabilities—a value-added product to sell around the globe.

■ GUERRILLA MARKETING IS THE KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS I can tell you from personal experience that the most qualified jobhunter is rarely the one who wins. The positions invariably go to the person who does the best job at positioning himself or herself as the solution to an employer’s problem. The dramatic changes we are witnessing in the marketplace mean that the tried-and-true methods of finding a job will no longer suffice. They should remain a solid part of your plan, but they don’t provide an adequate amount of exposure to potential employers. In 1997, Tom Peters introduced the concept of Brand U in his book Re-Imagine! (London, England: Dorling Kindersley, 2003). At the time, self-branding was an assertive marketing concept best reserved for high-flying techies and senior executives who wanted to maximize the financial returns of their biggest asset—their career. Today personal branding is a matter of survival. Becoming a guerrilla job-hunter is the only way to consistently move your career forward. The market is geared toward those who effectively brand and market themselves as the ultimate commodity across multiple distribution channels. Winning the War for Talent requires you to become a guerrilla job-hunter.

■ “YOU INC.”—YOUR PERSONAL BRAND More than ever in our history, huge value is being leveraged from smart ideas and the winning technology and business models they

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create. In the years to come, as companies strive to hire fewer but better people, employers will try harder than they ever have to attract and retain smart, boldly entrepreneurial overachievers. In the new world of work, value is not salary—not for the employer, not for you. With millions of dollars at stake, an employer’s search for an employee will be value-focused, not salary-driven. As a job-hunter, you need to comprehend that the production of value is the most important criterion for an employer when hiring. Articulating your value is your key to successful job-hunting; it separates you from all the other job-hunters. Understand, value is not salary; worth does not flow from a job title. Knowing what’s important to a company means looking beyond job descriptions and compensation tables, especially today when sudden changes and uncertainty are the norm. You need to comprehend: ➤ What value is a company expecting from an employee’s contribution? ➤ How do you communicate your value to an employer? Especially for management and senior positions, companies are rarely looking to fill in a box on a standard employee recruitment form; they are looking for something nebulous and more important. They are searching for a person who can deliver a quality, not a quantity, someone who can explode outward from an open-ended initiative-driven space. Qualities are difficult to find, measure, or test, and you don’t find these qualities by searching for specific salary levels—the qualities that make up the new value table are money-resistant. As initially explained in, Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional: Where the Jobs Are Now and How to Land Them. (Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2004). The new value table (Figure 1.1 on p. 12) goes beyond skill sets and resumes. In its simplest form, Figure 1.1 represents the base elements of your personal “brand.” Building your brand—making a “name for yourself”—need not be expensive. ➤ Create Your Brand—Guerrilla Style Personal branding is not about projecting a false image. It is about understanding what is unique about you—your accomplishments, experience, attitude—and using that to differentiate yourself from other job-hunters. Your brand is your edge.

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An Employer’s Value Requirements

Your Quality That Counts

Create new intellectual wealth for my company; add to my intellectual assets.

A consuming desire to make something new; to cut a new path rather than take a road.

High-energy enthusiasm for the job, regardless of the hours worked.

Work is a game—an integral, vibrant part of his or her life.

Not only is money not the most important issue—it's beside the point.

Internal pride to leave a "legacy signature" on their work, rather than strive for a paycheck.

Enduring performance.

An ability to stay and finish the race, because not finishing is inconceivable emotionally.

"Think around corners" to solve problems creatively.

Have an inner voice saying "There's always a way [to create a technology fix: make a deal]”.

Bring up-to-date professionalism into every fray.

Contain a desire to grow professionally—to become the best person he or she can be: invest in themselves.

Ever-increasing contribution.

The key to inner pleasure is recognized as making an individual contribution.

Identify and develop values for your company.

Instinctive grasp and exploitation of today's real value: the intangible capital of brand image, staff talent, and customer relationships.

Challenge the status quo.

Willingness and courage to speak the truth when you see a conflict.

Note: In it’s simplest form, the New Value Table represents the base elements of your personal “Brand.” Building your brand—making a name for yourself—need not be expensive.

Figure 1.1

New VALUE Table™.

Do you buy generic beer, clothes, cars? Do you buy any no-name large ticket items at all? Not likely! If you are like most people, you buy a brand because of the security and peace of mind that come from the quality and reliability of a known brand. Employers do the exact same thing when they hire people. Personal branding is critical for guerrilla marketers because: ➤ Employers are looking for results. ➤ Your results demonstrate your qualities, which satisfy an employer’s value requirements. ➤ Employers won’t buy generic employees. ➤ Employers will buy the intangible qualities implied by your brand (you are like Nike, too).

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➤ How to Create Your Brand Personal branding is about making yourself stand out so that people trust you and are interested in you. Guerrillas do this by leveraging their previous employers’ brand (names, slogans, and logos) to create an identity that is memorable and desirable to the people they want to reach. For your cover letter, this means naming the projects you worked on or the clients you sold to. Be specific. Be detailed. Sell the sizzle and the steak. For your resume, it may mean taking the logos (with permission, of course) of the companies you worked for or product you developed and placing them on your resume for extra punch. Nothing will get an employer’s attention faster than a well-known brand’s logo, especially if it is a competitor or a coveted account (this reaction is known as the “halo effect”). What would make the person reading your resume take notice of you? Could it be your training at another company? Might it be the Table 1.1 Position Sought

Suggestion List

Reader’s Interest

Suggested Graphics

Sales

Who have you sold to? Are there any major accounts you know they would like to have or would recognize as difficult to get that would make you look like a superstar?

Logos of the companies you have worked for or the major customers you have sold. Perhaps a product you sold if it’s more recognizable than the company’s logo.

Engineering

Who have you worked for? What major product where you part of designing?

Logos of your employers or customers. A logo or photo of the product you designed.

Marketing

What brands have you helped create? Where have you gotten press coverage for your products? What trade shows have you worked?

Logos of your employers. Logos of the newspapers or magazines you have had coverage in. Media quotes you were responsible for.

Finance

Have you done an IPO on NASDAQ? Have you secured funding from a major venture capital firm?

Logos of your employers or significant partners with whom you have negotiated.

Administration

How have you increased efficiencies?

Logos of your employers.

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companies you have sold to? Were you responsible for a major product that the employer might recognize? There are likely thousands of images you could use. You only want to put in five, so choose the five your reader is most likely to be interested in. Putting in more than five makes It too crowded. Table 1.1 is a list of suggestions for you to use in choosing your images. We go into greater detail about how you can leverage your brand through the clever design of your resume when we discuss eXtreme resumes in Chapter 6, Weapons That Make You a Guerrilla.

Part

III Tactics That Make You a Guerrilla

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Chapter

Guerrilla Networking A Radical Approach Things come to those who wait, but only things left by those who hustle. —ABRAHAM LINCOLN

At the core of every job search lies one individual who will determine your success—You. You are at the core of everything that goes on in your life, no exceptions. You and you alone are responsible for the failure or victory of your job-hunting mission. Let’s face it, nobody cares more about you than you—not even your mother. Job-hunting is all about you and what you do for yourself. You can count on other people but you’re the one that counts. Too subtle?

■ TARGETED NETWORKING The world of work has changed dramatically over the past five years. Isn’t it ironic then that most job-hunters still depend on the same old tired ways to find a job? Traditional networking ultimately relies on having a fundamental belief in the kindness of strangers. At its core, it preaches that job-hunters must have faith that they’ll find a job through a friend of a friend of a friend. This is largely a myth. Although I’ve heard that this strategy yielded great results in the past, it’s not enough today. With the constantly changing marketplace, there is more competition for fewer leads. Traditional networking is much like casting your fate to the wind. It is too passive to rely on. Moreover, there are three flaws in traditional networking:

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1. You need to have a network at hand when you find yourself out of work (by the way—being out of work is not the best time to start building one). 2. It requires you to be at least a little outgoing because you need to talk to strangers. 3. There’s no way to guarantee the jobs people refer will be ones you’ll excel at, much less be interested in. Today, networking can either be the shortest route to your dream job or to a lengthy series of unsatisfying lunches—the difference lies in how you approach it. Let me show you how a guerrilla networks. Focus all your networking at the tip of the spear; the companies you have already identified as being the Tier 1 buyers of your product—you. Anything else is a waste of your time, energy, and money. Target those companies where you know you can help solve a problem. We’ve been preaching target, target, target, for a reason—it works. Target with laser precision.

■ HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT—HOW TO NETWORK LIKE A HEADHUNTER Headhunters network every day out of pure necessity. More often than not, they will have an assignment for “X,” whatever “X” may be today, even when they’ve never recruited an “X” before. That doesn’t stop them from completing the mission. Instead, there are tried-andtrue methods for locating, identifying, and recruiting candidates. The following four steps show you how to do that for yourself. ➤ Step 1: Locate Your Target Companies Determine which companies you want to work for, how you can add value, and why they should hire you. If you’ve read up to this point in the book, you’ve already done this work. ➤ Step 2: Identify Who Runs the Department Find out who is in charge of the area you want to work in. This generally means identifying a vice president or general manager. For companies with less than 50 people, it may mean the owner or president. You can get this information by calling the company and asking, “Who’s responsible for X” or by looking on the firm’s web site to find the person in that position. Several methods for doing this are outlined in Chapter 5.

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➤ Step 3: Research Referrals Find people who worked at this company in the past—once again refer to Chapter 5—call them on the telephone, and get information about: ➤ The person you are targeting ➤ The department the person runs ➤ The company Be sociable and ask these people how they liked working there. Watch for any hesitation before they answer. The pause may be a clue that they don’t want to answer negatively and are framing a safe answer. The reasons for asking most of the following questions should be obvious. Having said that, keep the following select questions in mind even though it may not be immediately clear why you need to ask them. This exercise will help you prepare for an interview at a later date. You should ask the following questions in the order they are presented here: About the Potential Boss 1. Did you work directly for [insert name of potential boss]? —If the people you question did not work directly for the person, they may not be able to answer the questions 100 percent accurately, but their feedback may still be of value. 2. How long? —Longer is better. 3. What is [insert name] like? —What they mention first will be a dominant characteristic. You may need to push a bit to get the response. 4. What kind of person is [insert name]? 5. What kind of manager is he? 6. What does this manager look for in an employee? —How does your experience compare to that of the people they normally hire? 7. How is [insert name] positioned in the company? —This is a crucial question to confirm that you are targeting the right person. 8. Is [insert name] on the way up or down? 9. Does he have the ear of the president or owner? —You need to know whether this person has the capability to hire you and can get the president to sign off.

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10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Is he political or a straight shooter? What is his temperament? Where does he get his good people from? What type of people does he hire? Is [insert name] forward thinking or reactive? Is he aggressive or laid back? How’s his ability to pick winners? —You need to know now if this manager can easily recognize talent. This will dictate the amount of effort you may need to put into your approach. 17. Will [insert name] go to bat for his staff? 18. What was his biggest accomplishment? 19. Does he seek professional growth for himself? [If not, it will be difficult for you to grow on the job.] About the Department 1. Is it growing or shrinking? —Either way, the information will influence which of your skills you emphasize. 2. Is the department under pressure from competitors? —How is it handling this? 3. What are the department’s biggest issues? —Can you solve their problems? 4. Is the department respected by the rest of the company? —This determines whether it can get another hire in the budget. 5. Is the department seen as adding value to the company or is it viewed as just another cost center? 6. How’s the department doing compared with other departments in the company? 7. What’s the biggest thing the department needs to do to be successful? About the Company 1. What new products or services are they looking to build or offer in the near future? —How can my experience apply? 2. How are they doing financially? 3. If there’s one thing they need to do better than their competitors, what is it? 4. What do they do better than their competitors? 5. Who are their best customers? 6. Who would they like to have as customers?

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7. What do their customers think of the company? 8. How’s the turnover? 9. Can you think of anyone else I should talk to? —Get referrals, if you can, to people who currently work there to help cement your position even before you come in for the first interview. 10. Would you work there again? 11. Why did you leave? —Asking this directly is a good idea, especially if the person has made negative comments about the individual, department, or company. A person who won’t or can’t return to a former job may have a beef with the company that makes any opinion of doubtful value. 12. Does the company have a clearly stated vision? Do people in the company know what it is? ➤ Your All-Important Last Question “If I decide to talk with them, can I say I was speaking with you?” You ask that question for two reasons: (1) If your questions with the former employee result in positive answers, that employee’s name may help you later in securing a meeting with the hiring manager; (2) the former employee may just phone his old boss and tell him about all the background due diligence you’re doing on the company. That’s a great thing. All it takes to get the ball rolling is to phone the contact and say: Hi, my name is . I’m doing some research on XYZ Corporation and I know that you used to work there because [explain how you found the person’s name]. I’m thinking of applying for a job there. Can I ask you a couple of quick questions to see if it’s worth my time and effort? I know this is an unusual way to do a job-search . . .

Now be quiet and let the person answer yes or no. In my experience, seven out of ten times they’ll say, “Sure, what do you want to know?” If they say “No,” ask: “Do you know anyone who I can talk to about the company because I’m really interested in finding out as much as I can before I approach them?” Either you will get a referral with your second attempt, or the person may decide to answer your questions after all. Someone who had a good experience at the company will answer your questions without hesitation. If it was a bad experience, the person may tell you as well, but it’s unlikely. If you don’t get anywhere, move on to the next person on your list.

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Expect results! With a few minor variations, this is exactly how headhunters network to find candidates. Ask whatever you think is important for you to know before contacting the next person. You will be amazed by how much you will learn. Further you may be stunned by what people will disclose about former employers—if you just take the initiative to ask. The competitive intelligence you gather is valuable. Now you can assess how your accomplishments fit with the employer’s needs. After doing three to four of these interviews, you’ll have the inside track. You will be able to assess which of your accomplishments might be of most interest to the employer. When you approach the company, you will know far more than any other job-hunter before you’ve even had your first interview. You might be able to decide if it’s even worth working there. How powerful is that? That’s how a guerilla job-hunter networks. ➤ Step 4: Refer Yourself Instead of relying on someone to refer you, take the initiative and refer yourself. The rejection rate will be very low if you use the following script exactly as I have written it. There is powerful sales psychology at work here—too much to explain in this book—just do it. Trust my 20 years of experience. The following words are what you should say. Your part is labeled You and what the employer is likely to say is labeled Employer. The text below each statement briefly explains why you are saying what you are saying and what the employer’s response is likely to be. Call the person you identified as running the department on the telephone. Keep calling until you connect with the person and say, You: My name is . I’ve been researching your company and have talked to [name two of the people you spoke with if you have their permission] and they think that we should talk. Do you have time for coffee next week? This opener is designed to build curiosity and establish your right to talk to this manager. Using the names of the people who have worked for the person in the past gives you credibility. Employer: What’s this about? The tone of voice could be curious or annoyed because you still haven’t said what you want. Stay with the script.

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You: I’ve been examining the way you [market your product—sell to people—manage inventory—develop new products—(fill in the blank with the problems you know they have that your experience can address)], and I have a few ideas I’d like to share with you. Do you have time for coffee next week? The manager may think you’re a consultant—which could be good or bad and there’s no way to know in advance—or could sound grateful that the former employees were thoughtful enough to refer you because the department does have a big problem to solve. The person may invite you in right now or continue to cross-examine you. Note: Make sure you’re hitting the company’s problem areas. Employer:

Are you trying to sell me something?

You may sound like a bit of a classic salesperson, but don’t panic. Follow the script. You: No. In the course of doing my market research on the [name the industry] industry, I’ve learned that your company might be a good fit for my [project management skills] but frankly you’re the only one who knows that for sure. In the interests of time, I thought I would see if you had time for coffee so I can see if the types of results I achieved for [name the company] could be replicated for your company. Now you’re talking about how you solved a similar problem elsewhere and that will build your credibility and his interest in seeing you. But it still may not be enough. Employer: Thanks, but we’re not hiring anyone right now. If you hear this, you need to verbally pull back to maintain control. Here are the two rebuttals you should use, one after the other if necessary. Rebuttal A “That’s good because I’m not saying I’m interested in working there—at least not yet—but we both know the time to identify talent is long before you need it—would you agree [you want him to say something at this point to keep him in the conversation]? “[Name two more people you spoke with if you have their permission] said it might interest you to know how [throw out your biggest accomplishment at your current or last company that matches this

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company’s need] for XYZ Corporation. Do you have 15 minutes for coffee next week?” Often one accomplishment that addresses their problem will be enough to secure a meeting, but maybe not. Rebuttal B “You know XYZ Corporation had the same concern—Here is what I did for them [throw out your next biggest accomplishment]. I have no idea if that’s important to you or if you’re the type of company I can do this for [name a few of the people you talked to] thought it might be of interest. Do you have 15 minutes for coffee next week?” A second accomplishment that addresses their problem should be enough to secure a meeting, but again it may not be! Employer:

No, we’re not hiring, but you can send me a resume.

Don’t be fooled. The employer just wants you off the phone. Finish with this statement. You: I don’t have an up-to-date one. I’m not your typical [name your position]. I’m being smart about this. I’ve researched a few companies I want to know more about, and yours is one of them. After we meet, if you think my experience can benefit your company, then I’d be happy to do a formal resume and wait until you have an opening. Can we meet next week for coffee? If you get the appointment, you need to pick the place and time and confirm it two days prior. If the manager still doesn’t bite, there’s not much more you can do with the situation. Frankly, there’s probably something wrong with the person and, in my experience, that may actually be the company’s problem. So there’s only one thing you can do—move up the chain of command to this person’s boss. If you get the same reaction from the boss, move on to the next company.

GUERRILLA TIP ➤ Follow the script but practice until you don’t sound like you’re reading it. You need to sound relaxed and natural. ➤ Practice on a dummy—approach companies where, for whatever reason, you specifically do not want to work. In the headhunting business, we call these throwaways; companies we try new marketing material on before approaching a real employment lead.

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➤ Throwaways don’t matter so be as bold as you like. Practicing will build your guerrilla confidence.

■ USING GOOGLE FOR LEADS Right about now, you’re probably saying: “Great idea but where do I get the names of the people to call?” Thanks for asking. Remember Google? Go to www.google.com and type in the name of the company you’re interested in with the words “resume,” “work experience,” and “apply,” exactly as shown in Figure 9.1. For illustrative purposes, we’re using PeopleSoft as the company. This will bring back results that will include people who have worked for PeopleSoft in the past. The preceding example resulted in 127,000 hits at the time. Substitute the name of the company in this example for the company you want to research. Find a contact name among the returned links, get their phone number, and call that person. Using Google in this way should provide a handful of leads to former employees. There are other ways to do this. One of the largest databases of professionals in the United States is Zoominfo.com, www.zoominfo.com. This search engine allows you to do a keyword search by title, company, location, and a host of other criteria. The free version of the product allows users to search for a specific person by name with or without a company name. By selecting Advanced Search, free searching expands to include pulling lists of every person in the database for a certain company, or alumni of a university, or any person the search engine found on a given web site. The lists include former employees. They are ideal because it’s a universal truth that if approached correctly they will most often discuss previous employers quite openly. This is a tactic that successful headhunters use and so should you!

Figure 9.1

Google advanced exact word search.

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■ HOW TO TARGET REFERRALS The key to networking is to find people you can network with. For those of us who are terminally shy, the Internet has made it possible to network from our computer keyboard and avoid those awkward mixers most people associate with networking events. ➤ E-Networking for Success There are many of online sites that facilitate networking. Most are based on the “six degrees of separation” principle that recognizes actor Kevin Bacon as the center of humanity. Each site has slight variations on how you build and grow your network. First you join a site and create a personal profile. Your profile can include anything you want but generally it’s your business profile that is of interest. Before you get too excited, let me tell you right now that the sites are designed to protect your privacy and that of the other members. Second, you invite all your friends and business associates to join. Many sites have technology to facilitate inviting your entire Outlook database. When these people join, they are “one degree” away from you. Their network of contacts then would be “two degrees” away. Your network will grow as quickly as you recruit members who recruit members. Your ability to e-Network your way to a new job grows exponentially as your network develops. ➤ Link in and Connect Linkedin.com (www.linkedin.com) is my favorite. Your account is free. It works by first requiring that you set up your online profile and then invite your friends to join your network. After people join, they ask their friends and colleagues to join. For job-hunters this is a treasure trove of leads. There are several ways to use the site to find people you’re looking for quickly. This site recommends doing a search on the company you want to be referred to and see whom you find. You then send a note to the person who is directly linked to the person whom you want to connect to. With our PeopleSoft example it would look like Figure 9.2. ➤ The Results Show 4,546 Contacts You can experiment with the technology to get more or fewer results. In my case, 4,546 people is far too many to start to network with. I

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Figure 9.2



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Networking example.

want fewer people but at a higher level in the organization. By putting in the title vice president, I narrow the number of contacts down. In our example, this amounts to 122. I can narrow this further by location if I want to, but 122 is a manageable number for me. The basic idea is to then request, via the technology, for someone to connect you to the person you want to network with. The technology is set up to facilitate the introductions electronically. LinkedIn also lets people who have linked with you leave testimonials on how you were to work with. As a headhunter, I can view the testimonials, click to see if the testimonial writer is someone I should believe, and then decide if I want to contact the person. Not having testimonials doesn’t mean someone is a dud, but having 10 or more that are consistently good will make me want to connect with that person.

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GUERRILLA WISDOM Mastering LinkedIn Shally Steckerl

Once you have an account, go to the “Find People” tab and you can begin conducting searches. You can enter a few keywords and begin searching that way, but you may be surprised at how many results you get. You can be more specific by searching for contacts by location, industry, job title, name, company and keywords. You can conduct some special searches to narrow down your search. For example, you can limit your search to Hiring Managers, or find only people within a 50-mile radius of a specific zip code. If you have a company you are interested in, you can search for contacts who currently work there, or who have worked there in the past. These people may be able to help you get an introduction to recruiters and other hiring decision makers. You can also search for results in a specific industry. Besides getting direct connections to people, LinkedIn also has a dedicated job search function. Click on the Find Jobs tab at the top of the page. From here, you can conduct basic searches by Keyword, Location, or Job Function. There is also an Advanced Search feature with some additional criteria. Once you click the Search button, LinkedIn brings you a listing of the job titles that includes the company, location, and date, and also shows you how many degrees away you are in relation to the person who posted the job. As an added advantage you can see how many people have endorsed that job poster. Clicking on a job title brings you to a page with details about that position. This page includes all the kinds of job details you are already familiar with, but it also has a section called “Inside connection to the poster.” This section contains the name of the person who posted the job and lists how many contacts they have. If you have connections that can introduce you to the job poster directly, they will also be listed there. Below that section, there is another one called “Inside connection to the company” that will show you other people in your network who are connected to you and work at that company.

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All that is left to do now is to click on the Apply Now button and complete the application. Once you have entered all your information and uploaded your resume, you can submit your application directly to the job poster via LinkedIn. You can improve your chances of getting noticed by also requesting a referral to the job poster via the regular Request Referral process. LinkedIn will know that you are applying for a position, so it will automatically select the appropriate request type, include a link to the job, and add some special text to your request detail. There’s one more thing LinkedIn can do for you. It is a little application called JobsInsider. When you install the application, it will show you the names of people that you or your friends know at a company listed on a job page, anywhere on the Internet. A list of your contacts will automatically appear when you are looking at jobs on Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and more. Now you are on the way to finding great employers in your area with Google and connections to them with LinkedIn. Shally Steckerl is the author of Electronic Recruiting 101 (online: Electronic Recruiting Exchange, 2005), www.jobmachine.net/shally. He can be reached at [email protected].

From a headhunter’s standpoint, LinkedIn has it all. From a jobhunter’s standpoint, LinkedIn represents an opportunity of a lifetime to establish a powerful network of influential colleagues and friends.ILLA WISDOM

GUERRILLA MISSION Stop reading! What you have just learned is so powerful that, before you do anything else, I want you to establish your LinkedIn profile and invite your network of friends and colleagues to join you—right now! I’m serious! Joining LinkedIn is free and not something you want to “get around to.” It’s very likely your next job won’t be your last. You must do it now. Read the online tutorials and learn how to maximize your network.

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■ MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE POWER OF NETWORKING Mark J. Haluska is the executive director of Real Time Network, www.rtnetwork.net, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and I first met online at RECNET, an international online forum for recruiters and headhunters. Mark and I have never met face-to-face, yet we’ve worked as colleagues for four years now. I think we initially clicked because of our similar military backgrounds and because Mark has an offbeat sardonic sense of humor not unlike my own. He has a real ability to cut to the chase. In fact, we first got to know each other by trading barbs on recruiting for the first two years over the Internet. Mark was one of the first headhunters to read my initial book, Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional: Where the Jobs Are Now and How to Land Them (Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2004), and he was pretty blunt. He liked the book all right, but he thought it had wider appeal than just the technology industry. When I was approached to write this book, I asked Mark if he would mind proofing some of the chapters. I wanted another industry insider to review the material to ensure my strategies and tactics were state-of-themoment, accurate, and coming across correctly. Well let me tell you, for two people who have never met, we’ve become great friends, and the working relationship has been outstanding. Not only has Mark read every word in the book, he has challenged my assumptions and encouraged me every step of the way. You would think our desks were right next to each other. We are colleagues in every sense of the word. We talk on a regular basis and e-mail each other daily about more than just the book and headhunting. That is the real power of networking. Personal networking aside, the monetary value of these relationships can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. ➤ Additional Online Networking Sites Here are some other online networking sites that have unique benefits too numerous to mention here. You should choose at least one more online networking site and be as aggressive and as creative with it as you are with LinkedIn: ➤ Ryze (www.ryze.com) ➤ Friendster (www.friendster.com) ➤ Spoke (www.spoke.com)

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➤ EntreMate (www.entremate.com) ➤ ZeroDegrees.com (www.zerodegrees.com) ➤ Tribe.net (www.tribe.net) ➤ Where Else to Network Online Chat rooms, networking web sites, and other community forums exist all over the Internet. Many industries have specific sites they use for sharing knowledge and discussing trends. Yahoo! has the largest assortment at http://groups.yahoo.com. Some other accessible ones include: ➤ Vault.com (www.vault.com) ➤ Lycos Communities (www.lycos.com) ➤ America Online (www.aol.com) If you don’t find what you’re looking for at those sites, go to the following two mail list servers and do a keyword search for your industry: ➤ Topica (www.topica.com) ➤ CataList (http://www.lsoft.com/catalist.html) The biggest challenge is that you’re still relying on the kindness of others to send your request for a referral forward to the intended recipient. Of course, nothing stops you from finding the name of someone you want to talk to and contacting the person directly. If you do this, bear in mind that there’s no guarantee the person will be receptive to hearing from you. I suggest you obey the rules posted on each site. It’s been my experience that most people respond to my request for a referral within 24 hours.

■ SELECT TWISTS ON TRADITIONAL NETWORKING Okay, so maybe you want to network in person. If that’s the case, here’s how to find the venues you need and what to do when you get there. ➤ Networking Venues Every town and city in the United States has a “hot spot”; a place where all the “heavy hitters” congregate. Find it and join. The easiest way to locate these business or professional alliances is to ask professional people such as your banker, insurance agent, or investment consultant, what groups they belong to. The main job of bank managers is to solicit new business, and to do that they go where the

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influential people in town congregate. It will probably be a civic organization, golf club, or industry association. It really depends on where you live. Your contact network should always be growing, and the best way to expand it is to seek out new people and build relationships. It doesn’t really matter whom you choose, so long as you like them, they like you, and you can help each other. And when you get a job, let them know they helped with a quick note of “Thanks.” Classmates.com The granddaddy online community-based networking is Classmates .com. Using Classmates is closer to traditional networking because it’s based on your alumni. At Classmates you can join a network of people you went to school with (high school, college, or university) as well as military, industry, or company alumni. The challenge with using it to source contacts is that you need to search by state. I did a search for PeopleSoft in New York State and found only one connection. On the other hand, if you want to reach out to people you went to school with to reconnect and network, then Classmates is the way to go. A WA R S T O RY Dave Opton One Classmates.com member, a Notre Dame alum, read in BusinessWeek that more CFOs attended his alma mater than any other university so he obtained the list and wrote to them all. His “good old college try” netted him three interviews and one offer. Another member leveraged his college connection when he learned his school was going to be in the NCAA tournament in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As a demonstration of school spirit, he decided to attend the event, but not before attending a professional association meeting. At the meeting, he learned of an Ann Arbor position that perfectly fit his credentials, so he scheduled an interview while he was in town for the tournament. He became happily employed in a new location as a result. Dave Opton, president, ExecuNet (www.execunet.com).

Other Alumni Networks If you’re looking to make inroads with Fortune 1000 companies, then use a keyword search in Google to see if they have a corporate

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Figure 9.3



147

Alumni approach.

alumni web site. Many do and it’s the easiest way to find people. The command for Google is “[name of the company]” and alumni (see Figure 9.3). If former employees have an alumni site, this will find it. We were looking for Lotus Notes people recently and found this site through that query: www.axle.org.

■ THE KITCHEN SINK APPROACH While I would advise you not to specifically count on your friends and relatives, you would be remiss as a guerrilla if you did not use every possible tool. So, involve all your friends and colleagues in your job search. Many companies post jobs internally before going to newspapers or third-party recruiters, or have referral programs that pay employees a bonus for referring people. Ensure that your network of friends have your resume in electronic format and permission to forward your resume to hiring managers on your behalf. When referred by a colleague within your network, always ask the referrer how you should follow up. Some people will want you to call, others won’t. You need to abide by their wishes or they will not refer you again.

GUERRILLA TIPS ➤ Start with the people you know best. This encourages you to make the calls, and it’s a great way to ease into networking because they’ll be nicer than strangers. ➤ Don’t jump right into your agenda; start off by asking them, “Is this is a good time to talk and what’s new?” They’ll get around to asking about you soon enough.

Your goal is to get referrals. So how do you ask in a manner that won’t put people off? Generally, it is better to be subtle, so instead of, “Can you give me the names of all your friends?” try “Who else should

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GUERRILLA WISDOM Women and Networking Penelope Trunk

One of the reasons the glass ceiling persists is that networking is key to getting ahead and women are not as effective as men at building a network. For one thing, men, more than women, are likely to be invited out to dinner (since men are doing the inviting). Also, men, more than women, are likely to have the time to network outside the office (since women are the primary caretakers of children even when both spouses work). If you are a woman who thinks you do not have a problem networking, you are wrong: When men entertain clients at basketball games and strip clubs, you are not invited. Don’t tell me you don’t work with men like that. How would you know? They’d never tell you. Additionally, men talk differently to men than to women. The subtext of an all-male conversation is let’sbe-friends. The subtext of a male-female conversation is let’shave-sex. So women need to approach networking differently than men. Women are at a disadvantage and need to figure out ways to get ahead in the game. Here are some times when men don’t typically network, but women can: ➤ During work hours: While men tend to network before and after work, women usually feel too strapped for time for that. So women should concentrate on creating a network during office hours. This means setting aside time to speak informally with people inside your office and taking long lunches with people from other companies. This sort of schedule requires careful planning to start and maintain relationships—something women are usually better at than men. ➤ During family time: Most moms work. So get to know the parents at soccer games or gymnastics practice (you never know who might be there, especially on the weekend). In many cases, you will spend as much time with these parents as you do with some of your coworkers. So make the time count for your career.

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➤ During book clubs: The recent flurry of book club groups has not caught on among men, but women love them—even high-powered women you’d expect to be too busy to read Middlemarch. So while you’re at the book club, don’t be timid about letting people know what you do, and how you can help them. In that context, they are likely to reciprocate. ➤ At the gym: It doesn’t matter how busy you are, how many kids you have, you have to get some form of exercise. Sadly, most moms do not take this advice to heart, so the women at the gym are usually the single, no-kids, highpower types—great for networking. If you start going on a regular schedule, you’ll meet the other people who are on your schedule—men and women. Each of these situations will be awkward for most women, because generally, women don’t like mixing business with pleasure. But here’s my advice to you: Get over it. Men do it all the time. In fact, for many men, there is rarely pleasure to be had unless it’s mixed with business. So if you want to compete in a man’s world, which corporate America definitely is, then you need to take the small opportunities you have and work them as hard as you can. Penelope Trunk is the New York-based author of the online column Brazen Careerist. She has started Internet divisions at Fortune 500 companies, founded two technology-focused companies, endured an IPO, a buyout, and a bankruptcy. Contact her at: [email protected].

I be talking to?” or “I could really use your advice on something. . . .” People like to be asked for advice because you’re acknowledging them as an expert. If you’re wondering what to ask, try these openers: ➤ Are there any groups or organizations I should join? ➤ Are there any books or publications I should read? ➤ Is there anyone else I should be talking to? And my two personal favorites: 1. What would you do if you were me? 2. Whom would you be talking to?

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Dig for information about industry trends or trends in your functional area or specialty. Listen for plans for new products or services. Seek out emerging markets, hidden jobs, and companies that are hiring. Focus on anything change-related. Change equates to opportunity. Whenever you network, it is your responsibility to set the stage and ask how much time they have. State your purpose clearly and directly. Share your excitement and enthusiasm. Ask for advice and ideas. In general, listen more than you talk. This meeting is a courtesy call that must reflect well on the referee or they won’t continue to help.

A WA R S T O RY Ross Macpherson One of our clients worked for a large financial institution and desperately wanted to move up in the company, but kept hitting barriers in HR (not enough experience, not the right education, etc.). When we were working on her resume and job search campaign, she mentioned that the person she really needed to get in front of was a divisional president. Since she couldn’t work “within the system” at her firm to show him how great she was, we devised a long-range plan to work around it. The president in question sat on the board of a local nonprofit, a cause that both he and my client were passionate about. This was her way in. She volunteered her services with the organization and quickly developed a name for herself as a dynamic and innovative thinker who could really make things happen. Within a short time, she found an opportunity to meet her president at a fund-raising gala and introduced herself as the person who worked on the “X” campaign. She also mentioned that she happened to work for the same company (what a coincidence). After making the initial contact, over the next year she did more great things for the nonprofit, had more opportunities to shine, and quickly found herself on his radar. At one of their next meetings, she mentioned where she’d really like to see herself in their company, threw in a few of her ideas, and asked his advice. Knowing now how good she was, he recommended a few people and even offered to contact them on her behalf. With a strong testimonial from the company’s president, it wasn’t long before she landed a high-profile

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strategic role more suited to her abilities (she also stayed on with the nonprofit where she continued to do great work and has been asked to fill a major leadership position on a full-time basis). It was a unique case where shining outside the company helped her move up inside it. Ross Macpherson, president, Career Quest (www.yourcareerquest.com).

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Chapter

13 Creative Ways to Find a Job Breakthrough Strategies You’ve got to say, I think if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it. —LEE IACOCCA

Perhaps networking and cold calling aren’t for you. You should try anyway. Having said that, here are some unusual methods we’ve used in the past.

■ SEND HALF OF YOUR RESUME First, find a company you want to work for. Write a compelling cover letter describing why you are a good fit, pointing the receiver to the enclosed curriculum vitae (CV) for further information. Don’t seal the envelope and don’t enclose a CV. They’ll think the CV fell out in the mail. Wait for the phone to ring; speak to the hiring manager personally, engage in a conversation, and sell yourself shamelessly. Compliments of Matt Foster, managing director, CVO Group (www.professionalpeople.com). ➤ Use high-quality stationery. ➤ Make sure the letter fits snugly in the envelope so it doesn’t fall out. ➤ Ensure your phone number is on the cover letter.

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■ WRITE A PROSPECTING LETTER Harness the power of direct mail. Find five to ten companies. Compose a letter to your network of contacts asking them if they know anyone who works at any of the companies on your enclosed list. When you find a contact who knows someone on the list of contacts you are trying to reach, send them an eXtreme resume and ask them to forward it to their contact or better yet, ask permission to send it yourself. Send the letter first to all your direct contacts, next to your closest neighbors, and then to people that you don’t necessarily know but have always meant to introduce yourself to. ➤ If you hit a dead-end, find out who supplies the company with computer products, stationery, or any other service and approach them the same way. ➤ Don’t be surprised if someone calls one or two of the companies and tells them you are doing research on them . . . that’s not a bad thing to have happen.

■ E-MAIL CHAIN LETTER Take a list of 20 companies you want to work for and send an e-mail to everyone you know asking them to read the list to see if they know anyone who works at any of the companies. Ask them to contact you if they do, so that you can ask for a referral. Finally, ask them to forward your e-mail message to 10 more people. ➤ If you e-mail your list to 10 people and they e-mail it to 10 people and . . . Within four cycles, you have covered 10,000 people. ➤ Don’t ask people to e-mail to more than 10 people because they just won’t do it. ➤ Put your e-mail address in the message so people can e-mail you directly. ➤ Only include your phone number if you don’t mind having people call you. ➤ Don’t put anything in the letter you wouldn’t want a stranger to read. ➤ Put your name and e-mail address at the top of the message in a “From”: salutation, so the reader can find your coordinates quickly. ➤ Do not do this if you’re currently employed!

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■ DISTRIBUTE A BOOKLET Write a booklet with information relevant to your industry and give it away. Everyone loves a freebie, so give away something that demonstrates your expertise. I designed, wrote, and distributed a free booklet on how to do a reference check correctly, entitled Don’t Hire a Liar—see www.perrymartel.com. It subtly points out the benefits of using a professional like me when hiring. The booklet hot-links to a supplemental software program for reference checking that my firm sells. Link to your web site, e-resume, or blog. ➤ Give the booklet away electronically. ➤ If you send a printed version, indicate where the recipient can get extra copies for colleagues. ➤ Advertise it on your web site and those newsgroups frequented by hiring managers in your target market. A WA R S T O RY Jill Tanenbaum My most recent hire sent me a beautiful hand-designed booklet that contained the best samples of her design work. She didn’t just e-mail me a link or send a resume. The fact that she went over the top to design the booklet was impressive. In fact, her experience on its own wouldn’t have gotten her the interview, much less the job. But the booklet did it! Jill Tanenbaum, president, Jill Tanenbaum Graphic Design & Advertising (www.jtdesign.com).

■ CALL HUMAN RESOURCES I know this sounds like heresy, but there’s method in my madness. Call the human resources department. Ask what outside agency or third-party recruiting firm they use. Why? Two strategic reasons. First, any human resources person will immediately ask why you want to know. To which you answer, “I’ve been to your web site and I understand that you’re not looking for someone with my skill set right now but the agency you use may be dealing with other firms—so I guess I’m looking for a recommendation from you.” If they don’t press you for an interview, insist on knowing whom they use and why.

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➤ People in human resources love saving money on fees, so they may try to hire you directly. ➤ They tend to group together by industry and make referrals. ➤ Getting a referral from one of their customers will ensure an agency gives you special attention. ➤ Always ask for the name of a specific person and their direct dial number. ➤ Get permission to use the human resources manager’s name as a reference. ➤ Ask if they personally know of any other companies that could make appropriate use of your skills. ➤ Send them a thank-you note with a copy of your resume to keep on file. A WA R S T O RY Lauryn Franzoni A methodical strategy paid off for this ExecuNet member who was very active in her local human resources groups. She contacted the national headquarters for the names of local chapter presidents, and mounted a campaign of contacting each one every two months. Her persistence paid off when she received an offer. Lauryn Franzoni, managing director of ExecuNet (www.execunet.com).

■ WRITE A CASE STUDY Write a case study that showcases your skills. This could be as simple as a coveted client you sold or as complex as a new product you helped introduce to the market. Send the study to firms that have needs similar to those emphasized in the study. Not only do you get to showcase your writing as well as your research and analysis skills, it demonstrates your business acumen. For example: Did you establish an innovative compensation program for resellers that increased sales and decreased spoilage or returns? This is a big deal in retail, where 90 percent of profits are lost due to returns. ➤ Choose an example that builds your credibility with your targeted employers.

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➤ Results that would be of interest to a potential employer include increased efficiencies, new marketing techniques, and new or different distribution channels. ➤ Areas that would be promising include: —Sales/marketing: distribution channels —Manufacturing: Just-in-time (JIT) inventories —Operations: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems A WA R S T O RY Bill Humbert A college recruit graduated from an architecture program and wanted to work for Marriott designing hotels and hotel rooms. Prior to graduation, she contacted the architecture group at Marriott. They interviewed and liked her but did not have any openings. She asked if it was okay to keep in touch. Every couple of weeks, she would send a design for a room, a balcony, a lobby, a hall area, a convention area. Finally, after six months of constant contact (and probably to get her to stop sending designs they did not need), Marriott hired her. Bill Humbert, The Humbert Group (www.recruiterguy.com).

■ PREPARE A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS Do a competitive analysis on one of your targeted employer’s products and send it to the president or vice president of the targeted firm. People assume that all companies keep up to date on their competitors, but this is rarely the case. Most companies don’t have the budget or the ability internally to remain aware of best practices. Your piece will likely be most welcome. Follow these suggestions: ➤ Focus on companies that are direct competitors of those you want to work for, not your own company. ➤ Potential employers need to get something out of reading the piece. ➤ Use graphs and charts wherever possible because people like visuals. ➤ Make it only as long as it needs to be. ➤ Offer to share your primary research if the company is interested.

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GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR JOB-HUNTERS A WA R S T O RY Ross Macpherson

I worked with one client who specialized in retail merchandizing (point of purchase [POP], planagrams, etc.). After developing her resume, we discussed putting together a targeted job search campaign to go after some of the bigger players in retail. While working out her “unique selling proposition,” she made the claim that she could walk into any retail environment and recommend how they could make more money through better merchandising. I asked, “Can you really back that up?” and suddenly her plan was born. My client targeted five major retail outlets, went to a number of their locations, and made detailed notes on what she saw and how she would improve it. The first company she contacted was a major outlet with offices located in the building over the store. She walked into the offices, asked to speak to the person in charge of marketing and was told he was in a meeting until 11:00 A.M.. She scribbled a quick note on a piece of paper that read, “I’ve just spent 30 minutes in your store. I found three merchandising inconsistencies and identified seven ways that should increase your sales by about 12 to 15 percent. My name is and I will be waiting in the coffee shop downstairs.” She told the receptionist, “Please hand this to him at the end of his meeting. It’s very important,” and she walked out. Shortly after 11:00, the vice president of Marketing came downstairs, met her in the coffee shop, and she spent the next hour walking through every corner of the store with him discussing her findings. Although no such position existed, the vice president hired her as their new Director of Merchandising. Compliments of Ross yourcareerquest.com).

Macpherson,

president,

Career

Quest

(www.

■ CLASSIFIED ADS Buy a classified ad in the newspaper. Have a title that describes your ideal position (Cost Accountant, Project Manager, Marketing Manager). Bold the title and describe your features in 25 words or less. The more space you use, the more it costs. Use acronyms. For example, a cost accountant could advertise: CA 10 yrs exp in manufacturing. Excel, AccPac, Ref. More info 555-1212.

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➤ Bold your headline so it jumps off the page. ➤ Plan on running it for two to four weeks. ➤ If you can’t afford every day, ask which are their busiest days. ➤ Propose a “swap,” a contra deal where you trade your expertise instead of paying cash. ➤ Ask if you can run a box ad and pay only for actual leads.

■ WRITE A BROCHURE Do a brochure instead of a resume. This is a great way to find temporary or contract work leading to a full-time position. Send the brochure to your target group. Speak to their needs on the front cover. Profile your projects and accomplishments on the inside three flaps (use one of the inside flaps for quotes from your references). Reserve the back panel for your mini bio. Include a photo if you’re good looking (see GM4JH.com/007.html for examples). In addition, do the following: ➤ Hand-address the envelope you mail it in. ➤ Buy glossy brochure paper for your laser printer. I order mine from Paper Direct (www.paperdirect.com). ➤ Lead with your best foot. ➤ Keep the copy short. ➤ Make sure your address and contact information are easy to find.

■ CONSULTANT LETTER Employers often prefer to “try before we buy” prior to making a permanent offer, or to bridge the gap while they are looking for a permanent employee, or so they can hide the extra headcount in their “variable” costs. Many people get their start this way. Robert W. Bly has a letter in his book, The Encyclopedia of Business Letters, Fax Memos, and E-Mail (Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 1999), that he suggests using to land consulting or freelance jobs. It starts this way: Is freelance a dirty word to you? It really shouldn’t be. In public relations, with its crisis-lull-crisis rhythm, good freelancers can save you money and . . .

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Wow! What a great opener for starting a discussion! Use the possible contract as an entrée to a permanent job. Great places to start looking for consulting gigs are www.guru.com, www.net-temps.com, or www.elance.com. Or, simply target companies you’re interested in. ➤ Focus on the employer’s needs, not yours. ➤ Dismiss their concerns about hiring a consultant by quickly stating the benefits in the first paragraph. ➤ Provide letters of reference from former employers. ➤ Give the employer your absolute best effort because you may be auditioning for a permanent job. ➤ If you’re not hired full-time, ask for referrals to other departments, divisions, or companies that they think might benefit from your services.

■ TEMP TO PERM The temporary help industry employs nearly two million Americans on any given day. “Temping” is a multibillion-dollar industry. This is a great way to break into a company through the backdoor. Remember, employers hire from within first, so it’s to your advantage to already be there. Although there may not necessarily be a lot of firms hiring people on a full-time basis, there are probably a lot of firms that can afford one day a week. ➤ Market yourself as a “Top gun for hire.” A good rule of thumb on what to charge is 1.6 times your previous daily rate. ➤ Try to get hired for full days not half days. ➤ Ask the employer to provide parking. ➤ Invoice people every week.

■ START YOUR OWN TEMPORARY HELP FIRM Start your own temp firm with other people and market each other— not yourself—on your lunch hour. I did this years ago when I worked in retail. There were 20 or so of us who banded together for this. I would close my door at lunch and make calls to try and find jobs for my colleagues. My line was simplistic,

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Hi, my name is David Perry and I have a friend with [fill in the blank with your friend’s technical experience, education, accomplishments as the situation warrants] and he’s looking for a new job. Are you hiring any ? May I have him call you for an interview?

That was it. If they said yes, I passed on the details. If memory serves me correctly I was successful about 1 in every 10 calls. I placed 21 of my colleagues before I realized perhaps I should be doing this for a living . . . but that’s another story. Here are some suggestions: ➤ Ideally, your friends should make the call list and give you the highlights of their background that fit. ➤ Be prepared to give a thumbnail sketch of their background and qualifications. ➤ Make sure you tell people there is no fee for the referral. ➤ Keep records of whom you’ve called and when. ➤ If you get a negative response, ask what type of skills the company is hiring. ➤ Ask if they’re looking for anyone with your background. ➤ Develop a thick skin.

■ AUDITION It worked well for the people on Survivor and The Apprentice, so why not you? Produce a video, burn it on CD or DVD, and distribute it to potential employers. Keep it tasteful and highlight the results you achieved on one or two projects. Ask for an in-person interview. If you have video editing software, you can burn your own copies for less than $2, complete with the box. In addition, do the following: ➤ Use a DVD box because you can tuck a resume inside the front cover. ➤ At the beginning of each video, tell the employer why you’re interested in working for the company. ➤ Talk about the research you did to conclude the company is a good fit for your skills. ➤ Highlight accomplishments that would be of interest to this employer. ➤ Ask for an in-person interview.

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I had recruited a young guy (very early 20s) for a visual basic developer position at one of my clients. He had a two-year computer science degree and had been working for a year and a half to two years as a sort of one-man IT department for a very small, rural manufacturer. He did it all . . . programming, networking, support, you name it. The day before the interview, he and I met for lunch. He brought along his laptop and proceeded to show me how he had developed an application for my client, based on information he had gleaned from me, their web site, and other sources. He had been working on it every evening for the past week, and it was most impressive. Good functionality, slick interface, intelligent use of technology . . . simply awesome. The day of the interview came and went. He did well, just as I had expected, but we were a bit nervous. Another, more experienced programmer had applied on his own and interviewed as well. I spoke with the client just after he had made the decision to hire my candidate. He stated the deciding factor was (no surprise) the “home brew” application my candidate had developed. It proved, in one fell swoop, that he could, without a doubt, do the job, and perhaps most important—that he wanted it more. Compliments of Jim Moens, owner, SearchWorks at www.searchworkscareers .com.

■ DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME There’s an obvious benefit to out-of-the-box activities that bring you to the attention of employers. There is also a real danger of crossing the line and doing something in poor taste or that puts you or the employer at risk. Here is an example pulled from the pages of the Montreal Gazette on October 15, 2004: The job-hunter hoped his resume would land him an interview. What he got was the attention of the bomb squad. The man was arrested after he included his CV in a ticking package left in a Montreal marketing firm’s washroom last month. It was his way of drawing attention to the application, as he was among 400 contenders vying for six paid internships. The 24-year-old didn’t get the job but he did get charged with pub-

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lic mischief. He had handed the receptionist an Arabic newspaper with a note alerting her to the ticking parcel in the men’s washroom, police said. At a time of heightened concerns over terrorism, the package raised the specter of a bombing. Montreal police evacuated the company’s building. Later, police discovered the package was harmless. It contained a metronome—a device used by musicians to help maintain rhythm and tempo—along with the candidate’s CV.

GUERRILLA TACTICS ➤ Be bold! ➤ Be passionate! ➤ Be creative! ➤ Be tasteful! ➤ Be safety conscious. ➤ Be image conscious. ➤ Enlist a personal army of helpers. ➤ Offer a reward to anyone who helps you secure an interview or job. ➤ Don’t do exactly what others have done recently.

15

Chapter

Negotiating the Deal How to Bargain with Confidence The Worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can’t do without. —DONALD J. TRUMP, TRUMP: THE ART OF THE DEAL

Congratulations. You’ve been through all the interviews. You like the organization and the job—it’s a good fit. The organization likes you, too, and offers you the position, so now what? How do you make sure you get the best possible package for meeting your needs and those of your new employer? Guerrilla, you’ve been setting up the close from the first moment you walked into the employer’s office. You looked sharp, acted smart, and came off as self-assured by not talking about compensation—a real “A++ Player.” Carry that same behavior into the negotiations. Candidates who net the best results approach the negotiation process with a blend of positive attitude and preparation. The following information is important to your financial wellbeing whether you are an individual contributor or a senior executive. Some of the entitlements and strategies may not apply to your current situation, but the strategies and tactics are valid for every new hire. As we go through the material, think about how you can apply these techniques.

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■ PROJECT A WINNING ATTITUDE Unlike many business deals that are short-lived and transactional in nature, employment negotiations are relationship driven and can last a lifetime. It may be acceptable to thump your fist on the desk to gain a concession buying a car because you’re not likely to see the salesperson again; however, you’ll likely see the employer’s negotiator every morning at the watercooler. You may get a small special consideration but at what cost—being labeled a horse’s ass? The uncompromising aloofness of a candidate who doesn’t give a damn bespeaks such a wealth of self-confidence that the client may figure there’s something to it, but if you don’t deliver, you’ll be dispatched with equal indifference. In negotiations, flashy, bold, or arrogant behavior is a detriment. Approach the negotiations instead with noncommittal enthusiasm coupled with the ability to walk away. If any offer is acceptable, you have nothing to negotiate—but you must negotiate because you risk alienating the employer if you don’t. After all, it’s no fun for the fisherman when the fish jump into the boat. You don’t want to appear so excited that they offer you less than top dollar. Conversely, don’t run them off by having the appearance of indifference. As a headhunter, I never worry about the brash egodriven candidates—they’re easy to close—it’s the quiet ones I have to keep an eye on. Your leverage rests with your confidence in your ability to do the job. You don’t need to sell. The employer must sell you. But first, you need to understand what you’re buying.

■ PREPARING FOR THE OFFER AND NEGOTIATIONS Research equates to power. That’s absolutely the case now. Before you receive an offer, you need to create a checklist of your needs and expectations. Guerrilla, if you don’t plan like this, you may find that in the rush and excitement of accepting the position, you forgot or missed important elements. Winning at this stage requires you to look beyond salary and deal with the complete package.

■ NEGOTIATE YOUR POWER BEFORE YOUR PAY This may seem at first a little backward. Doesn’t your title determine your salary? Well actually, “no.” It’s the depth of your responsibilities that determines how much an employer is willing to pay you. The

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greater your level of responsibility, the richer your pay packet. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to negotiate your duties and responsibilities before tackling compensation. You and the employer must have the same understanding of your responsibilities and the specific performance standards that gauge your success. Performance standards must be observable and measurable; they can’t be subjective or your performance becomes open to interpretation making your bonus subjective as well. For example: a subjective clause in a contract might read “increase sales.” An objective statement would read, “Increase sales by 15 percent in 12 months.” Only the second clause can be measured. If during the interview process, you agree to shoulder more responsibility than the employer originally envisioned, document it at the time, so that when you negotiate compensation, you can both make an apples-to-apples comparison. By supersizing the responsibilities of the job (do you want fries with that?), you push compensation upward! The easiest way to negotiate the salary you want is to increase the responsibilities of the job. You must document the following: ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Title Reporting structure Authority Accountability Number of direct staff Specific performance standards Committee responsibilities if any

Any increase in authority or responsibility that you can document will amplify your compensation package. If the increase in responsibility is not documented and the “job description” stays the same, there’s no justification to raise your salary. You and the employer need to have the same view of the position’s scope before the offer is made. Your initial strategy is to increase the compensation package in light of the increased responsibility. That way, the employer’s first offer is already inflated and probably closer to an acceptable level requiring only minimum negotiation. Once you have the details of the job finalized, it’s up to the employer to come back to you with a reasonable offer. You have two choices here. You can either tell the employer exactly what it will take to close the deal or you can let them make an offer. After investing this much time in interviewing and negotiating, most employers

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will come back with a reasonable offer because they don’t want to repeat the process with someone else. By the time they get to this point, the employer already has a pretty good idea of what the market is paying for this position and what the company can afford. As a headhunter, my strategy is to aim for the absolute top dollar and settle a few bucks below. It’s in your best interest to let employers think they’ve won. This shows that you are flexible.

■ ESTABLISHING YOUR BOTTOM LINE Do you know what your bottom-line salary must be? “More,” isn’t a number. Most people have an idea of what they would “kinda like to make,” but rarely do people know exactly what they need. Fewer still know what they want prior to the offer. Failure to establish your bottom line may place your current lifestyle at risk or at the very least leave money on the table. It’s important to know those details but it’s even more important not to tell the employer. Ideally, you want to start negotiating well above your minimum amount and if all goes well, never approach it. Guerrillas won’t wait until the last possible moment; they’ll tally up the cost of their lifestyle well in advance of the employer’s first offer. All employers think about salaries in ranges of high and low. Many subscribe to salary surveys you can access free, like www.salary.com. Your future employer’s industry association will likely have a salary survey, too; pick up the phone and ask. If you can’t get access to it, then do your own. Call their competitors. You’d be surprised how much information you can get from a human resources department if you tell them you are a researcher—which you are. Appendix 3 provides a detailed list for researching compensation requirements. ➤ Negotiating Benefits Compensation is more than just your base salary, but employers will be focused primarily on the base salary because it’s a fixed cost and in some cases, such as insurance, it determines the cost of other benefits. From your viewpoint, though, almost anything you don’t have to pay for directly saves you money. Maybe you noticed that I did not list a cell phone as a benefit in Appendix 3. Companies will try to tell you it’s a benefit; in reality it’s an electronic dog collar. Many of the newer phones have GIS (geographic information systems) positioning technology making it too

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easy to track you down—via satellite—on your day off. Ask for a monthly allowance instead. ➤ Tuition Forgiveness This is not the same as an education allowance. Tuition forgiveness deals with the money you already invested in your education. For example, you may have financed an advanced degree in nursing, and now each month you have a student loan just as you might have a loan for a car or house. If you’re in a “hot area” like IT security or nuclear medicine, you may be able to get the employer to assume your education mortgage. Now’s the time to stop reading and turn to Appendix 3, if you haven’t already. Take a hard look for any items you currently pay that you could switch over and have the employer cover. Insurance programs can be very costly and you pay for them with after-tax dollars—double ouch. The employer will gladly provide extra benefits if he thinks that you will accept a lower salary. Let him reason that way for now. Remember, benefits are great, but they’re not spendable dollars. You maximize your cash flow by having the employer pay for your benefits. Always maximize the employer’s portion of the coverage because you’re not taxed on benefits. Well, okay—in Canada benefits may be taxed; but in the United States, you’re taxed on your gross salary, not your total package including benefits. Frequent flyer miles are the only exception; if the company gives them to you and you use them, the IRS will tax you.

GUERRILLA MISSION Look at the list in Appendix 3, determine what you have now, and how much each item costs. What benefits can you reasonably expect the employer to pay for? What would you like them to pay for? Make a list now so you know what you’re going to be negotiating for and the monetary value of each item. Using a checklist ensures you won’t have regrets later. It also demonstrates your business savvy. Be alert, employers may try to trick you by focusing on your “total compensation” instead of your salary. Instead of focusing on the $40,000 salary, the employer will try to sell you on the $52,000 package (base + benefits). In most employee/employer negotiation schemes, it’s to the employer’s advantage to load up the benefits component to lower

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base salary. Of course, guerrilla, you’ll be prepared to counteract this. You want the highest possible salary and great benefits, too.

■ YOUR STRATEGY Take the lead. Do not make the mistake of letting the employer define the issues for you. You must negotiate salary last. Why? Simple, the employer will be focused on the big number—your salary—to the exclusion of all else. We want to nibble—just a little—and then a little more. Talking about the little items first will earn you a string of rapid concessions on items like insurance, professional fees, and vacation. If the employer wants to be the hero on the salary front; who are you to deny them? A true winner gives wins away, so let them feel like they’re winning. For the time being, focus on increasing the value of your benefits by 50 to 100 percent. It’s still money for you and there’s no ego involved in their giving away benefits.

GUERRILLA TIP If you are relocating and you already own a home, make sure you don’t get stuck with two. Have a clause put in the employment agreement that states in effect that you’ll endeavor to sell your house but if after two months the house is not sold at fair market value, the company is responsible for buying the former home outright or paying your mortgage until such time as the house is sold. This is one of those benefits you want to think about from the outset but only table as an “afterthought” just as you’re reaching to sign the employment agreement. Essentially, you need to have all the other points of the agreement in writing before you try this. Don’t worry, you’re not going to shock the employer; they were just holding their breath hoping you wouldn’t bring it up. Shame on them for trying—shame on you if they succeed. On several occasions, I’ve needed to go above and beyond even this. I have gone so far as to negotiate the moving of a director’s wine collection from France. Now in this case, we capped it at 500 bottles. He wasn’t too pleased with the prospect of leaving the other 3,000 bottles behind and appeared incensed at my idea of disposing of them by throwing a mega bon-voyage party. In the end, I made arrangements for long-term storage at

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a vineyard outside Paris. In another case, we bought a manager a home and moved his daughter’s horse. Nothing, it seems, is beyond reason as long as the employer is convinced the company needs you. Remember though, parity is important in an organization and some of the things you request may be denied because they would shake up the organization’s existing compensation ranges and structures. If this is the case, don’t push further—the organization isn’t likely to budge and you will lose. After all, there has to be something left on the table for the employer.

■ THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DEAL After several go-rounds on benefits, you’ll likely be close to settling in to negotiate salary. When you think that time has come, then you may want to raise the following issues as much for the opportunity to secure them as to give them away: ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤

Signing bonus Severance Earlier-than-scheduled compensation review Guaranteed minimum first-year bonus

How you deal in the final negotiations will be a telltale sign for the employer on how well you will negotiate for the company. This is especially important if you are seeking a purchasing, marketing, or sales position. You don’t want to cave, but you do want to be seen as being logical in your rationale and considerate of their position. Remain enthusiastically noncommittal. Throughout the negotiations, you may hear comments or questions like the following and you need to be prepared to deal with them in a logical and matter-of-fact style: ➤ If we make you this offer, will you accept it right now? ➤ What will it take for you to accept the offer? ➤ What other way can we structure this deal so that it would be acceptable? ➤ What do you think is fair-market compensation for someone like you in this industry in this city?

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➤ How low can you go on each dimension of the compensation package? My advice is to remain cool and stick to your agenda. An employer who is asking you these questions is trying to close you. The “psychology of the deal” dictates that you never ever accept an offer on the spot. If you say yes immediately, it weakens your position now and in the future. Always ask for a day to think about it even if you’re ready to sign. You may want to use phrases like: ➤ I’m very interested in joining your team, and I’d like the night to think it over. Is that okay with you? ➤ I’m very interested in joining your team, and I’d like the night to discuss the details with my spouse. Do you mind? (This is especially relevant if it requires relocation.) Your uncommon courtesy will buy you the night—or longer—to mull over the details and ensure you haven’t missed anything.

■ BREAKING AN IMPASSE When negotiations come to an impasse and they always do, it’s your responsibility to continue driving the deal. Be prepared to ask questions and keep the negotiations alive and moving forward. Asking questions like these demonstrates your sincere interest in coming to an agreeable offer: ➤ What flexibility do you have on: salary, signing bonus, annual bonus, or anything else? ➤ How about considering other dimensions of the package, beyond annual salary and job title? For example, signing bonus, annual bonus, vacation, retirement plan, and equity. ➤ What other differently structured compensation packages can you offer?

■ NAVIGATING THE GAUNTLET Most people are reluctant to negotiate because they either feel greedy or have a hard time asserting themselves. Yet these same people are quite effective when acting on behalf of their company. Guerrilla, if this describes you, it is okay. Your remedy is at hand—do it for your

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family. Think what a difference an extra $5, $10, or $20,000 could make in little Timmy’s life. By negotiating for those you care about most, you’ll negotiate a better deal. It’s never just about you.

■ BODY LANGUAGE You need to be conscious of your body language. Be aware of the messages you are sending. There are times when the negotiation can be a real grind. Don’t get rattled. Don’t let them see you sweat. Telegraph what you want the employer to see. If you are smiling and your palms are face up on the table, those are signs that you are open and receptive to what they are saying. If, instead, your eyebrows are furled and your fists are clenched, I have a pretty good idea what you’re thinking. Drink lots of water. No coffee or alcohol. Take frequent bathroom breaks on purpose if you need to compose yourself.

■ ASK FOR A LITTLE—GET A LOT If you are negotiating an hourly wage, remember that every dollar per hour represents $2,080 per year. Most employers like to talk salary. For salaries less than $50,000, focus the employer on the dollar per hour amount. Simplify and minimize the concession you need. For example, it’s easier to get an employer to agree to an increase from $20 to $24 per hour than to get them to agree to a $48,000 salary when they budgeted $40,000. Which do you think is more palatable for the employer? Asking for $4 more per hour is nothing—$8,000 causes unnecessary headaches; in both cases it’s an additional 20 percent in your pocket. You may also run into one of the following scenarios and you need decide in advance your course of action (I have a few suggestions): ➤ The employer acts like they’re doing you a favor. ➤ They appear cordial until you dig your heels in. ➤ Someone besides your future boss is doing the negotiations. The employer wants to strike the best deal possible. All kinds of games may get played. Disarming the employer can be as easy as turning your hands palm-up on the table and saying to them, “You look a little tense, is everything all right?” That phrase will force even the most hardened negotiator to lighten up. Try it.

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■ NEGOTIATE WITH THE FINAL DECISION MAKER Before you start, make sure you understand whom you’re negotiating with. Some employers use the timeshare-vacation-approach. They send in the HR manager or some other junior functionary to have the preliminary discussion and isolate your hot buttons. After several hours of discussion, they suddenly need management approval. You don’t want to discover at the last minute that your hard-fought concessions were all for naught and you’re facing a new negotiator. If the offer has come through a headhunter, you need to understand the recruiter’s role in the negotiation. Typically, it’s in their best interest to get you as much money as possible because their compensation is tied to yours. Many recruiters lack the depth of knowledge and breadth of skills necessary to negotiate a complete package. You’d be wise to gauge your recruiter’s skill at negotiating before turning your life over. In some cases, they’re more interested in closing the deal as quickly as possible. If this happens, the smart guerrilla remains firmly in the driver’s seat. Use your recruiter as a sounding board and a platform to launch trial balloons. If the employer gets agitated, it’ll be with the recruiter not you. If something goes wrong, just deny—deny—deny. The employer may step in to finish the negotiations and the recruiter will still get paid—it’s all part of the game.

■ CLOSING THE OFFER Get it in writing. Keep notes during the negotiations explaining what was agreed on. Time and date stamp your notes as you go. When the final draft is completed, read it closely to make certain that the final offer reflects what you’ve agreed. If years down the road, you notice a discrepancy, you won’t be able to correct it. You get one shot at doing this right. When the final deal is done, pay a lawyer to review the terminology of the contract or letter of employment for unforeseen pitfalls (e.g., noncompetition clauses that would force you to move to Alaska if you wanted to pursue your profession with another employer in the future). Employ the lawyer to read the terms and conditions for ambiguity only, not to renegotiate or add to the contract. Most lawyers are deal breakers not deal makers, and you don’t want one of them to kill your deal. Finally, don’t talk yourself out of a deal—know when to shut up. Once it’s done, it’s done. Move on quickly to another subject. I need

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to emphasize the importance of talking about anything but the deal once it’s done. Talk about the weather or the “big game.” Avoid anything that sensitive people can dispute.

■ HOW TO KILL YOUR DEAL It goes without saying that I respect your judgment—you bought this book—but I need to caution you not to overdo it. It’s easy to get caught in the euphoria of “doing the deal” when you do this type of negotiation only occasionally. Guidelines for Successful Negotiation ➤ Don’t immediately agree to the offer. You’ll brand yourself as “light.” ➤ Don’t give ultimatums. If you adopt a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, they’ll leave it. ➤ Don’t be negative. Seek win-win resolutions instead; it’ll disarm your opponent. ➤ Don’t try to renegotiate a point that’s already been agreed to. Trying to reopen a discussion once it is closed brands you as immature and may jeopardize the entire deal. ➤ Don’t let the employer renegotiate anything unless you get a major concession. ➤ Don’t discount the help. Let recruiters do their jobs. I once had a candidate who insisted on negotiating directly with the CEO instead of through me. The client and I wanted this guy badly and he knew it, but he never once asked about compensation. In the end, the candidate left $40,000 in base salary and 200,000 options on the table, and that was just the initial package I’d been authorized to negotiate. The options alone turned out to be worth $1.6 millon.

■ HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR DEAL Here are some rules you should remember: ➤ Focus on the package not the salary. Several years ago I recruited a general manager for a technology client. Our ideal candidate turned out to be unaffordable. His base salary was $60,000

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above our top end. I convinced the candidate of the true potential of the technology. He took a cut in base pay in exchange for 250,000 options. It was a heck of a sales job because the options were underwater. Over a four-year period, he drove the value of the company’s stock to $72 from $2.50 netting himself a cool $16.8 million. ➤ Only let them check your references after you’ve accepted the offer. Never invest your reference’s time for an offer you don’t accept. You look foolish and the reference is less likely to help you the next time. Some people think it enhances their value, but that’s rarely the case. Any employer who’s read my booklet, Don’t Hire a Liar, will know how to cut through the smoke and mirrors and get at the truth. You have more to lose because they may find areas where you’re not as strong as they thought, in which case they might lower the offer. ➤ Measure your value against your true peers. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who undervalue their jobs. When you’re conducting your salary survey, make sure you know what the comparative person is really responsible for. Titles by themselves are pretty meaningless. You may be a senior engineer responsible for 10 to 12 people while a similarly titled person is responsible only for herself. Should you be paid the same amount of money? Of course not. Make sure you appraise yourself fairly.

■ URBAN MYTHS You will get a lower salary if a professional recruiter (headhunter) is involved. Wrong. In fact the opposite is more likely. Hiring managers have two distinct pots of money. Your wage is treated as a salary expense. The recruiter’s fee comes out of a hiring budget. The two are completely separate. The recruiter will receive a percentage of your salary for the first year. Wrong. If you are placed in a permanent position, the recruiter is paid whatever fee was agreed on with the employer up front. It does not come out of your check. As previously stated, it comes out of a different budget. You lose nothing.

GUERRILLA TIPS ➤ Expect to compromise. There are rarely absolutes, negotiating is a give-and-take on both sides. Seek win-win resolutions.

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➤ Explore constraints and flexibilities. Seek to understand the employer’s constraints, such as salary levels or equity positions for certain positions. Likewise, know your own constraints and flexibilities. ➤ Listen more than you speak. Listening is different from hearing. Seek to understand, not to be understood. Understand what is being said and why it is being said. ➤ Be sensible. You are looking for a relationship that ought to be equally beneficial. Recognize their constraints and requests, as you expect them to recognize yours. ➤ Offer solutions. It is your responsibility to offer solutions that can be the basis for negotiations. You know what you want. Don’t make them guess continuously.

■ SUMMARY You’d be surprised at the lengths to which some employers will go once they believe they have found their ideal candidate. It is absolutely essential to have the employer recognize your value before you begin to negotiate. If an employer understands your value and is convinced you can do the job, then the question becomes, “How much it will take to get you?” Deal from a position of strength and you might just hear Donald Trump say, “You’re Hired!”

Hi, My name is David Perry. I certainly hope you enjoyed the 3 chapters. Please pass them on to anyone you feel would benefit. Of course - you really haven't read the best parts yet so please log on to www.perrymartel.com OR walk downtown to your favorite book store and buy a copy of the book. You'll use it as a reference for the rest of your life I'd greatly appreciate your feedback. At this juncture in my life I'm addicted to writing - I still love headhunting - but writing and lecturing has become a part-time passion, so if you don't mind... - What did you find most helpful in the book? - Is my subtle sense of humor even slightly funny or does it get in the way? - What else would you like to know about the job search process? The best way to reach me is by E-mail at [email protected] Remember, the future is about what you do for you - today, so I dare you to pull three ideas from these chapters and action them now. All the best, David Perry PS Don't forget to sign up for the FREE 50 Ways to Find a Job newsletter at http://perrymartel.com/50ways.html PPS Do a review at Amazon.com and if you do I'll email you a complimentary copy of You Inc. The 38 page guide includes 2 step-by-step real-life resume makeovers and 18 actual 1 page resumes that will get you noticed immediately!